His speed is now at the 59th percentile! He's still grumbling about the 'cheating' penguin which, for the level he's playing at now, travels faster than he can make his penguin move.
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| Faster A-One! |
Saturday, December 8, 2012
The penguin's still cheating Mum
A-One continues to do his daily online brain training, but in this hectic pre-Christmas season, I have not been able to add any clocks or reading exercises for a couple of days. By including the additional logical, rather than arithmetical, problem solving game, A-One's problem solving is finally advancing beyond the 2nd percentile to 4.5th percentile. Today he was offered a new attention game, so his attention BPI took a slight dive, but I expect he'll recover that fairly soon. Even so, he gained 4 PBs.
His speed is now at the 59th percentile! He's still grumbling about the 'cheating' penguin which, for the level he's playing at now, travels faster than he can make his penguin move.
I've been visiting some of the sites listed in SharpBrains' market report. One in particular appears to be based in Lyon, France Scientific Brain Training Rehabilitation Program which describes very well which cognitive functions are exercised by each of their 28 exercises. I'm particularly interested in the Executive Function exercises which include strategy through logical reasoning, and planning through forming mental images of which steps to execute.
His speed is now at the 59th percentile! He's still grumbling about the 'cheating' penguin which, for the level he's playing at now, travels faster than he can make his penguin move.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
No pause, so I'll restart
As A-One did his Lumosity today he was grumbling that some games did not let him hit the pause button (so that he could mentally catch up with the game.) I barely heard his comments over the music playing in the study. It was too loud for me to concentrate, so I don't know how he does.
He was willing to add a logical problem solving exercise to his usual set of games and is working at a level where his comment was something like 'I don't know why it's wrong. I can't figure it out.' He restarted the game three times mid-game.
No PBs today.
He was willing to add a logical problem solving exercise to his usual set of games and is working at a level where his comment was something like 'I don't know why it's wrong. I can't figure it out.' He restarted the game three times mid-game.
No PBs today.
Global market report into digital health offerings
I have just received the latest newletter from SharpBrains, an independent market research and think tank tracking health and productivity applications of neuroscience. In my assessment they are strongly backed by academics, and have a long list of professional articles listed on their blog, including one by Barbara Arrowsmith-Young on why she wrote The Woman Who Changed Her Brain.
They report on fully automated applications designed to assess, monitor and/ or enhance cognition and brain functioning. Even though the report is available for purchase, they provide an overview which includes a list of the top vendors worldwide. Some of the sites I'd discovered so far are listed:
Of course, my challenge has always been which programs are the right ones for A-One's specific cognitive impairments, so that his efforts in brain training translate to real improvements in his quality of life.
- Lumos Labs is listed in the top five
- the Arrowsmith program is listed first on the list of Service-based Companies
- CogMed is listed in the list of companies to watch in 2013/14
Of course, my challenge has always been which programs are the right ones for A-One's specific cognitive impairments, so that his efforts in brain training translate to real improvements in his quality of life.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Penguins, the postal service, and problem solving
A-One's keen to have his laptop repaired, but it doesn't translate to moving faster than he usually does, even though he received a call early yesterday morning with instructions for sending it off for repair. Hopefully we'll get it to the post office today.
Yesterday I encouraged A-One to do one of the non-maths problem solving games in addition to the usual games that his online training offers him as part of his program. However, he was his familiar resistant self so it didn't happen.
When he did do his training, he achieved a PB for flexibility and his overall BPI at 701 was his highest so far, but he had attained that a few days ago, then went for a dip.
Today was more exciting. He gained 3 PBs and his highest BPI so far, 142% up on his starting score just a few weeks ago. And he was singing along with some music while he did the games!
A-One: This game is unfair - the penguin is going faster than I can!
Mum: Yes, that's to challenge you to improve your speed.
At the end of the games presented to him, his percentiles were:
Speed: 56th
Memory, Attention and Flexibility: all now above 20th
Problem Solving: 0.9th
I prevailed again upon him to try a non-math problem solving game.
A-One: No, I'll do only the ones they give me.
Mum: You don't have to do only those. You can do others as well. Look, click on Problem Solving and choose one of the two non-maths ones.
A-One: Alright ... I'm thinking which one.
He chose the same one that he had the other day, discovering the rule for grouping shapes. A couple of days ago when he first tried it he made comments about it being a silly game, however today he followed it quietly and achieved the next level.
We went back to see how that affected his BPI, and it had increased, and his problem solving had gone from 0.9 to 2.3rd percentile! He was pretty pleased with that.
So I might have more success in convincing him to add that game to his daily routine.
No clocks or reading comprehension - his co-operation level hasn't been so high.
Off to the post office ...
Yesterday I encouraged A-One to do one of the non-maths problem solving games in addition to the usual games that his online training offers him as part of his program. However, he was his familiar resistant self so it didn't happen.
When he did do his training, he achieved a PB for flexibility and his overall BPI at 701 was his highest so far, but he had attained that a few days ago, then went for a dip.
Today was more exciting. He gained 3 PBs and his highest BPI so far, 142% up on his starting score just a few weeks ago. And he was singing along with some music while he did the games!
A-One: This game is unfair - the penguin is going faster than I can!Mum: Yes, that's to challenge you to improve your speed.
At the end of the games presented to him, his percentiles were:
Speed: 56th
Memory, Attention and Flexibility: all now above 20th
Problem Solving: 0.9th
I prevailed again upon him to try a non-math problem solving game.
A-One: No, I'll do only the ones they give me.
Mum: You don't have to do only those. You can do others as well. Look, click on Problem Solving and choose one of the two non-maths ones.
A-One: Alright ... I'm thinking which one.
He chose the same one that he had the other day, discovering the rule for grouping shapes. A couple of days ago when he first tried it he made comments about it being a silly game, however today he followed it quietly and achieved the next level.We went back to see how that affected his BPI, and it had increased, and his problem solving had gone from 0.9 to 2.3rd percentile! He was pretty pleased with that.
So I might have more success in convincing him to add that game to his daily routine.
No clocks or reading comprehension - his co-operation level hasn't been so high.
Off to the post office ...
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Phone calls, phone calls, phone calls
Finding the timing and pace of A-One's daily routine increasingly like nails on my internal blackboard, I took the opportunity to go out early for some Christmas shopping yesterday morning. Once I got home, we had 3 activities to negotiate:
We rehearsed what he needed to say, and he handled the first call with some prompting from me. He was told to expect a call back on his mobile in 10 minutes.
I then wanted to start the second activity because our experience of Centrelink is that you can be on the phone for 30 minutes or longer before you get to speak to someone, and if it wasn't completed before close of business, it'd have to carry over until Monday. I rang the number on our landline, but A-One became agitated and reached across and closed the call.
A-One: We can't call Centrelink yet because I'm waiting for a call back!
Mum: Yes, that might happen, but we'll handle it. There are two of us, and we can take a call each if it comes to that.
A-One: No, I don't want to do that.
Mum: We'll run out of time if we don't kick off some of these things at the same time.
I called Centrelink again. Because this call was just about resetting his password which he's done several times before, I told him that if his mobile rings while he's on the phone to Centrelink, I'll answer his mobile.
As it turned out, he was on the phone to Centrelink when his mobile rang. He looked at me anxiously until I answered his mobile. While I was taking instructions on that call, he was fine handling the other call without me. I completed my call while he was still on the phone trying to think up a new password.
After completing his call, at my prompting he logged in and found out that he could still report his employment for the lapsed period. He needed my help to work out the numbers to enter for income and number of hours. When he logged off, I suggested he put a repeating appointment in his iPod as a reminder for his employment reporting, and this time he acquiesced. (I had suggested it a fortnight ago, but he didn't want to know about it.)
He was very keen to know what happened in my phone call about his laptop, so I stepped him through what he needed to do. Again, we rehearsed what he would say and listed the two things he needed from the call. While making the call, he frequently looked at me for guidance on what to say, and after completing the call, checked with me about what he had just done.
The topics of backups arose.
A-One: If I lose all my data, that would be terrible.
Mum: Yes, that's what backups are for.
A-One: I've never done a backup; I didn't really know how to do it.
Mum: Sometimes it's worth finding out how to do something to avoid something worse. What do you think?
A-One: If I haven't lost all my data I'll do a backup as soon as I get my laptop back.
To assist him with his employment reporting, I wrote out a table showing his income for the number of days and hours he worked, which can vary. I showed it to him, asking if he'd find it helpful to put that in his iPod too so that he can refer to it next time. He decided it was, and proceeded to enter it.
On completing it he checked with me if it was correct, so I told him how he could check it himself using the rate per hour.
We also had a discussion about the start and finish days of the reporting period, so that he knew which days to count. Initally he didn't understand that, but I could see his aha! moment when he gave a correct example of which days were in which reporting period.
There was still another phone call to make about his laptop, so we rehearsed that, and he again handled the call with prompting from me.
After observing where he needed help with these activities, I wrote out a 'recipe' for making phone calls, similar to the 'Baked Fish and Vegetables' step-by-step recipe that I'd previously written out for him and which he'd used successfully. We can use it for the next phone call.
Later on he did his online brain training. I was out of the room when he called out to me.
A-One: Hey mum! I just got a PB for Raindrops!
(Raindrops is the mental arithmetic problem solving game.)
Mum: That's great! How did the others go?
A-One: I got 3 PBs!
I was left wondering whether working through the arithmetic for his employment reporting constituted a 'warm-up' for his brain training. Did he just need to get those neural pathways warmed up?
On an A-One scale, we accomplished a fair bit today. When he is motivated, he becomes a delight to work with.
- Follow up on A-Ones's laptop repair
- Find out what to do when he's late with his employment reporting to Centrelink for his pension
- Online brain training
A-One was very keen on his laptop repair because he didn't want to be without it over Christmas. I was privately pleased that he seemed to have worked out how long until Christmas, demonstrating some sense of managing his time, but my husband told me later that he had told A-One he'd better find out what's happening before businesses shut down for the holiday season.
We rehearsed what he needed to say, and he handled the first call with some prompting from me. He was told to expect a call back on his mobile in 10 minutes.
I then wanted to start the second activity because our experience of Centrelink is that you can be on the phone for 30 minutes or longer before you get to speak to someone, and if it wasn't completed before close of business, it'd have to carry over until Monday. I rang the number on our landline, but A-One became agitated and reached across and closed the call.
A-One: We can't call Centrelink yet because I'm waiting for a call back!Mum: Yes, that might happen, but we'll handle it. There are two of us, and we can take a call each if it comes to that.
A-One: No, I don't want to do that.
Mum: We'll run out of time if we don't kick off some of these things at the same time.
I called Centrelink again. Because this call was just about resetting his password which he's done several times before, I told him that if his mobile rings while he's on the phone to Centrelink, I'll answer his mobile.
As it turned out, he was on the phone to Centrelink when his mobile rang. He looked at me anxiously until I answered his mobile. While I was taking instructions on that call, he was fine handling the other call without me. I completed my call while he was still on the phone trying to think up a new password.
After completing his call, at my prompting he logged in and found out that he could still report his employment for the lapsed period. He needed my help to work out the numbers to enter for income and number of hours. When he logged off, I suggested he put a repeating appointment in his iPod as a reminder for his employment reporting, and this time he acquiesced. (I had suggested it a fortnight ago, but he didn't want to know about it.)
He was very keen to know what happened in my phone call about his laptop, so I stepped him through what he needed to do. Again, we rehearsed what he would say and listed the two things he needed from the call. While making the call, he frequently looked at me for guidance on what to say, and after completing the call, checked with me about what he had just done.
A-One: If I lose all my data, that would be terrible.
Mum: Yes, that's what backups are for.
A-One: I've never done a backup; I didn't really know how to do it.
Mum: Sometimes it's worth finding out how to do something to avoid something worse. What do you think?
A-One: If I haven't lost all my data I'll do a backup as soon as I get my laptop back.
To assist him with his employment reporting, I wrote out a table showing his income for the number of days and hours he worked, which can vary. I showed it to him, asking if he'd find it helpful to put that in his iPod too so that he can refer to it next time. He decided it was, and proceeded to enter it.
On completing it he checked with me if it was correct, so I told him how he could check it himself using the rate per hour.
We also had a discussion about the start and finish days of the reporting period, so that he knew which days to count. Initally he didn't understand that, but I could see his aha! moment when he gave a correct example of which days were in which reporting period.
There was still another phone call to make about his laptop, so we rehearsed that, and he again handled the call with prompting from me.
After observing where he needed help with these activities, I wrote out a 'recipe' for making phone calls, similar to the 'Baked Fish and Vegetables' step-by-step recipe that I'd previously written out for him and which he'd used successfully. We can use it for the next phone call.
Later on he did his online brain training. I was out of the room when he called out to me.
A-One: Hey mum! I just got a PB for Raindrops!
(Raindrops is the mental arithmetic problem solving game.)
Mum: That's great! How did the others go?
A-One: I got 3 PBs!
I was left wondering whether working through the arithmetic for his employment reporting constituted a 'warm-up' for his brain training. Did he just need to get those neural pathways warmed up?
On an A-One scale, we accomplished a fair bit today. When he is motivated, he becomes a delight to work with.
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